I will mark six years of blogging in April 2012. I have to laugh a little when I check out some of my earliest efforts. I’m a much better blogger now, but I’m motivated by the same concerns that got me started. Here’s something I wrote at my very first blog post: No other single topic or object of analysis in my entire career as a political scientist has worried me as has contemporary anti-Americanism. I have learned about the complex nature of the radical left in this country, and its ties to, for example, transnational movements to deligitimize the nation-state and the principle of national sovereignty, the world’s anti-globalization forces, and pro-Palestian organizations bent on the destruction of Israel. It was the radical left’s treasonous attacks on the war in Iraq that first got me to writing. I started American Power in October of 2007 when I finally pinned down my central ideological orientation: I’m neoconservative, but by now more reflective of that persuasion and more sophisticated in its elucidation. Unlike some who’re characterized as “national greatness” types (or ridiculed that way, in fact), I’m animated by the tea party movement and my goals aren’t so much as to radically shrink government but as to promote a politics of balanced budgets, entitlement reform, and continued support for a robust defense — a ” constitutional conservatism .” These goals can’t be achieved with the Democrats in power, obviously. And while we may get Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee, any of the mainstream Republicans would be an enormous improvement over the current administration. (Ron Paul is not mainstream and I’d abstain next November rather that vote for him if he somehow secured the nomination.) I’ll also continue to shine a spotlight on the global neo-communist left. I’ve learned a lot about the left over this past six years — indeed, I’m a changed man. Probably the strangest thing to me is what I frequently refer to as our upside down politics of moral bankruptcy at home and abroad. This is one reason why my support for Israel will continue more consistently than ever before. Progressives hold Israel in the cross-hairs for death as an independent state. And when called out on it they’ll spew the most vicious historical lies — the kind of lies that would make the Nazis proud . Support for Israel rests at the center of the defense of Western civilization. I often remind myself that Israel defends itself just fine and that the Jewish state is not going out of business any time soon. And that’s true. But Israel’s enemies are working harder than ever before to push the Jews to the sea and this administration is doing its damnedest to bring about that reality. This situation brings even some of our most stalwart defenders of decency in the world to despair that we’ve crossed a threshold of appeasement and social decay, and this failure threatens the peace and stability of the West. I’m not personally pessimistic about the survival of right and decency in the United States. But things will depend on winning the upcoming election and driving the Democrats from power. As I’ve noted many times, today’s Democrat Party is no longer the party of Truman and Kennedy. It’s a progressive-socialist party that touts nearly 100 Castroite members in Congress. And the political culture is increasingly infected with the cancer of progressivism and political correctness. It will take a lot to turn back the tide against these freaks, but the new social media — and the Democats’ overreach itself — is empowering new armies of the righteous to take this country back. And on a personal level, 2011 was a considerable challenge as a blogger. I beat back not one but two attacks that might have broken lesser writers. First were the attacks at my workplace by Scott Eric Kaufman and Carl Salonen. There is nothing more despicable than the kind of lies mounted by progressive demons as this. It’s shocking, really, the extent that people will go to destroy their political enemies. But I rest soundly every day knowing that it’s the truth that sustains me and that progressives can’t take me down no matter how hard they try. And believe me, they try and will continue to try because the left does not tolerate deviations from the accepted narrative, especially from a political scientist working from behind the lines of academic totalitarianism. I drive the left f-king crazy. And I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. The second challenge was the damned Righthaven lawsuit, which I beat by simply refusing to capitulate to those assholes. As I said at the time, it was scary as hell being served, but Righthaven is a bully and a troll and they’re going down in a gloriously epic defeat . So, thanks to all my readers. I have a few core readers and supporters who’ve become my friends, and I have a large number of readers and linkers among fellow conservative bloggers. And I continue to hear from new readers from time to time with words of good cheer and support. It all sustains me and I’ll be plugging away throughout 2012. Happy New Year!
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Blogging in 2012
SANAA, Yemen (TheBlaze/AP) — Yemen’s autocratic leader agreed Wednesday to step down after months of demonstrations against his 33-year rule, pleasing the U.S. and its Gulf allies who feared that collapsing security in the impoverished nation was allowing an active al-Qaida franchise to step up operations. President Ali Abdullah Saleh is the fourth leader to lose power in the wave of Arab Spring uprisings this year, following longtime dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. But the deal ushering Saleh from power grants him immunity from prosecution and doesn’t explicitly ban him from the country’s political life – raising doubts that it will address Yemen’s many problems. The deal opens the way to what will likely be a messy power struggle. Among those possibly vying for power are Saleh’s son and nephew, who command the country’s best-equipped military units; powerful tribal leaders; and the commander of a renegade battalion. Saleh had stubbornly clung to power despite nearly 10 months of huge street protests in which hundreds of people were killed by his security forces. At one point, Saleh’s palace mosque was bombed and he was treated in Saudi Arabia for severe burns. When he finally signed the agreement to step down, he did so in the Saudi capital of Riyadh after most of his allies had abandoned him and joined the opposition. Seated beside Saudi King Abdullah and dressed smartly in a dark business suit with a matching striped tie and handkerchief, Saleh smiled as he signed the U.S.-backed deal hammered out by his powerful Gulf Arab neighbors to transfer power within 30 days to his vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. He then clapped his hands a few times. “The signature is not what is important,” Saleh said after signing the agreement. “What is important is good intentions and dedication to serious, loyal work at true participation to rebuild what has been destroyed by the crisis during the last 10 months.” Saleh had agreed to sign the deal three times before, only to back away at the last minute. The power transfer will be followed by presidential elections within 90 days. A national unity government will them oversee a two-year transitional period. The deal falls far short of the demands of the tens of thousands of protesters who have doggedly called for democratic reforms in public squares across Yemen since January, sometimes facing lethal crackdowns by Saleh’s forces. Protesters camped out in the capital of Sanaa immediately rejected the deal, chanting, “No immunity for the killer!” They vowed to continue their protests. President Barack Obama welcomed the decision, saying the U.S. would stand by the Yemeni people “as they embark on this historic transition.” King Abdullah also praised Saleh, telling Yemenis the plan would “open a new page in your history” and lead to greater freedom and prosperity. Saleh, believed to be in his late 60s, addressed members of the Saudi royal family and international diplomats at the signing ceremony, portraying himself as a victim who sought to preserve security and democracy but was forced out by power-hungry forces serving a “foreign agenda.” After the bombing in June, Saleh spent more than three months in Saudi Arabia for treatment, returning to Yemen unannounced and resuming his rule. As Saleh funneled more resources to cracking down on protesters, security collapsed across the country. Armed tribesmen regularly battle security forces in areas north and south of the capital, and al-Qaida-linked militants took over entire towns in southern Yemen. Saleh often used the fear of terrorism to shore up support for his rule, even striking deals with militants and using their fighters to suppress his enemies while raking in millions of dollars from the United States to combat the branch of al-Qaida that he let take root in his country. The U.S. saw little choice but to partner with him, and Washington stepped up aid to Saleh to fight Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. That group, believed to be the terrorist group’s most active branch, has been linked to plots inside the U.S. The would-be bomber who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas 2009 was in Yemen earlier that year. The Pakistani-American man who pleaded guilty to the May 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt was inspired by Internet postings by Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric who sought refuge in Yemen and was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Sept. 30. U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, charged with killing 13 people in the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at Fort Hood, also exchanged e-mails with al-Awlaki. Even before the uprising began, Yemen was the poorest country in the Middle East, fractured and unstable with a government that had weak authority at best outside the capital. For months, the U.S. and other world powers pressured Saleh to agree to the power transfer proposal by the Gulf Cooperation Council. He agreed, but then backed down before signing the deal. The deal alone is unlikely to end the uprising or address Yemen’s deeply rooted problems. “He did sign, but I don’t think this is the end of the crisis in Yemen,” said Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University. The deal doesn’t address powerful members of Saleh’s immediate family, including his son who heads the elite Republican Guard. His relatives could continue to act as proxies for Saleh inside the government. Nor does the deal include Yemen’s most powerful opposition figures and their armed followers, including an army general who defected to the opposition and the country’s most powerful tribal leader. A real democratic transition could create a government to challenge al-Qaida in restive southern Yemen, Johnsen said, “but at this point we are still along ways from that.” It is unclear when Saleh will return to Yemen. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Saleh told him in a phone call that he would travel to New York for medical treatment after signing the agreement. He didn’t say when Saleh planned to arrive in New York, nor what treatment he would seek. Saleh signed the deal just over a month after videos showed a bloody Moammar Gadhafi being heckled by armed rebels in Libya shortly before his death. In some ways, the deal gave Saleh a way out. He can return to Yemen, so he won’t be exiled like ousted Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. And it protects him from prosecution, so he won’t be put on trial like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Saleh implied he could play a role in Yemen’s future. “I’ll be among the most cooperative with the next coalition government,” he said. He said it would take decades to rebuild Yemen and struck out at those who strove to topple him, calling the protests a “coup” and the bombing of his palace mosque “a conspiracy” and “a scandal.” As he spoke, dark scars on his hands from his burns were visible. Protest leaders have rejected the Gulf proposal from the beginning, saying it ignores their principal demands of wide-ranging democratic reforms and putting Saleh on trial. They say the opposition political parties that signed the deal are compromised by their long association with Saleh’s government. Sanaa protest organizer Walid al-Ammari said the deal does not serve the interests of Yemen.” “We will continue to protest in the streets and public squares until we achieve all the goals that we set to achieve,” he said.
Republican presidential candidates are seen at the debate at Dartmouth College Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011 in Hanover, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
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AP Fact Checks GOP Candidates on Taxes, Jobs & the Economy
Via Zombie, ” Occupy L.A. Speaker: Violence will be Necessary to Achieve Our Goals ” (at Memeorandum ):
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‘Long Live Revolution! Long Live Socialism!’
This weekend, two prominent Republican Senators came out swinging against mounting GOP opposition to military intervention in Libya. In separate Sunday morning interviews, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham both expressed disappointment in recent indications that Congressional Republicans as well as several members of the 2012 GOP presidential field support a more measured approach to our policy in Libya. While McCain and Graham might represent a legitimate and mainstream position within the party, is deviation from their form of hawkishness really the wrong-headed political heresy they contend it is? Or is this evolution the indication of recognition that current circumstances require a shift in priorities? On ABC’s This Week, host Christiane Amanpour presented Senator McCain with some of the statements given by the GOP’s presidential contenders in last weeks CNN debate. Particularly highlighted was a statement by Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann in which she questioned the wisdom of an intervention in a country by which “we were not attacked, we were not threatened with attack, there was no vital national interest.” Shortly thereafter Amanpour asked Senator McCain what he believed Ronald Reagan might say about these responses, to which McCain responded “…that is not the Republican party that has been willing to stand up for freedom for people all over the world.” The only problem with this is that, as Bachmann had rightly indicated in the debate, it has not been resolved that we’re standing up for freedom in Libya. While the overthrow of Gadhafi would undoubtedly remove a sociopathic strong man from power, the goals of the opposition have not yet been identified. While we might be caught up in the initial fervor and glory of revolution (as many were with the recent Egyptian revolution), a more sober analysis might well prove that the beneficiaries of our bombs in Libya are the exact element we’ve been combating in other corners of the Arab world. McCain then contended that the party’s growing hostility toward the Libya mission represents an ideological shift toward isolationism. The truth, however, is that questioning our involvement in Libya is not an indication of growing isolationism as he insists; rather it’s an indication of growing sobriety. As our domestic problems continue unabated, there is a growing sense that we must be more deliberate in our foreign affairs. One needn’t be a military isolationist to question America’s involvement in Libya. When America invaded Iraq, there was months of vigorous debate. This was not the case with Libya, a conflict that appears more and more every day to be growing beyond the scope of NATO’s initial charge. Across the dial Senator Lindsey Graham took to NBC’s Meet the Press to express his opinion. When asked about Speaker John Boehner’s threat to defund the mission in Libya because it violated the 1973 War Power’s Act, Graham replied, in part, that “…Congress should sort of shut up …”. Aside from a clear lack of tact, Graham shows a startling disregard for the law. While Graham correctly states that the constitutionality of the War Powers Act is debatable, it is not the job of the executive branch to simply dismiss laws it deems unconstitutional, especially laws that have been adhered to in good faith for nearly four decades. On top of this, it’s certainly not the task of the legislature to collaborate with the executive to enable those dismissals and allow them to go unquestioned. While the questionable legality of the War Powers Act should indeed be examined, President Obama has, in the past, expressed support for it. In the March 21 st letter to congress in which he notified the legislature of his decision to commence with airstrikes and missile attacks on Libya, the President wrote, “I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution. I appreciate the support of the Congress in this action.” Clearly, the President assumed that his actions needed to adhere to the War Powers Act in March. Should the president not be held to the standards he laid out three months ago? Should Republicans be admonished for having no stomach for such a blatant display of hypocrisy? Clearly, Senators McCain and Graham do not believe that the recent emergence of skepticism within the Republican ranks represents a positive development for the party, and America’s, future. My question becomes, would Senators McCain and Graham have the Republicans be the party blind acquiescence? Is our position so thoroughly fixed to foreign interventionism and executive war powers that asking even the most basic of questions represents partisan heresy? With so many unresolved questions hanging over our foreign policy, we shouldn’t allow party hacks to shame us into silence. John McCain and Lindsey Graham should, to borrow a phrase from Senator Graham, shut up and allow us to openly debate the wisdom of Libyan intervention. Just to refresh your memory, here’s a video of the Sunday morning geopolitical brain trust that told you to shut up, shaking hands with Gadhafi in 2009. As Mark Steyn asks over at The Corner, can this be construed as “empowering” Gadhafi? Nick Rizzuto is a producer for GBTV. Follow him on Twitter @Nick_Rizzuto .
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Questioning the Libya mission: heresy or sobriety?
AFP – President Barack Obama insisted that the current US military action in Libya was legal, rejecting rising criticism from Congress over the goals and justification of the operation.
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Obama insists Libya action legal
(AFP)
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — The killing of Osama bin Laden, a man who was America’s face of evil for nearly a decade, left Christians, Jews and Muslims relieved, proud or even jubilant. For their religious leaders, it was sometimes hard to know just what to say about that. There is at least some dissonance between the values they preach and the triumphant response on the streets of New York and Washington to the death of a human being — even one responsible for thousands of killings in those areas and around the world. The Rev. Bill Kelly, priest at Saint Mary of the Assumption in Dedham, Mass., near Boston, said he was taken aback by the celebrations because he detected bloodlust. Christians should rejoice that justice was done, but not that another human being was destroyed, he said. At the same time, Kelly said, the emotional reaction is understandable. “This is 10 years of pent-up anger, hurt, frustration, especially here in the Boston area because the crimes were initiated here,” he said, referring to the two planes that took off from Boston before crashing into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. “We all know people who lost people.” Kelly said the problem comes when the reaction to the terrorist leader’s death is “tinged with hatred and revenge.” Some religious leaders weren’t planning to say much about bin Laden’s killing at services. The Rev. David Howard, on the other hand, shouted his approval — in a sense — from outside his Virginia Beach church’s doors. “OSAMA BIN LADEN, SATAN AND THE FINAL VICTORY OF JESUS,” read the marquee outside Brook Baptist Church, publicizing the sermon Howard started writing hours after he heard that a team of Navy SEALs based in Virginia Beach killed the al-Qaida leader. There is no equivocating in his message: Howard has no doubt that bin Laden was an instrument of Satan who was brought to justice with the aid of God, who answered the prayers of millions. “We should pray for bad people, evil people, that when we pray to God he will change their lives. But if he won’t change their lives, especially those who have a lot of power to hurt a lot of people, you pray for their end because they’re causing so much pain,” he said. “You pray somehow God will take them out. The Bible is very clear that God is in control and every person in power is because God put them there. He can put them there, he can keep them there or he can take them out. That’s his prerogative.” The leader of one of the nation’s largest mosques was equally direct during prayers Friday. “There is no doubt that this man was a thug, he was a murderer,” Imam Hassan al-Qazwini told worshippers at the Islamic Center of America in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. “His hands were stained by the blood of thousands of innocent people — Muslims and non-Muslims alike.” Qazwini, who delivered his sermon in a large, circular hall filled to capacity, said the Quran is clear that someone who kills one innocent person “is doomed to hell forever.” And the imam was particularly incensed that bin Laden “committed atrocities against innocent people … while he was calling ‘Allahu akbar,’” or “God is great.” “He’s responsible for tarnishing the image of Islam in this country. He’s responsible for tarnishing the image of Muslims,” he said. “We’re happy to see the man who caused so much pain for Muslims in this country is gone … finally.” Before the sermon, he told The Associated Press that Muslims are discouraged from showing jubilation over death, but cheering the news of bin Laden’s demise marks an occasion where “justice was served.” The Vatican said Christians could never rejoice about the death of any human being, though it acknowledged the reasons the U.S. pursued bin Laden for nearly a decade. Spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said bin Laden was responsible for having caused the deaths of countless innocents and for having used religion to spread “division and hatred among people.” The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader and Nobel Peace laureate, said Tuesday in Los Angeles that although bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness as a human being, it is sometimes necessary to take counter-measures. “Forgiveness doesn’t mean forget what happened,” he told students at the University of Southern California. Among Amish and Mennonites, bin Laden’s killing clashes with their ethic of valuing every person as a son or daughter of God, though they also believe God allows a government to do what is necessary to protect its people, said Paul Miller, the director of the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center in Berlin, Ohio. Though some shun technology, they still follow the news closely, and Miller said he wouldn’t be surprised of some members of those churches have also celebrated bin Laden’s death. “That seems to me to be contrary to what God calls us to do and for our nation, as an enlightened country. One would think (we) might have some higher goals and some higher ethics than just to be following a retribution of an eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” Miller said. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said the Bible marks a distinction between individual Christians, who should pray for and forgive their enemies, and the state, which has a different responsibility. “God says they are to punish the evildoers,” he said. “I take no personal pleasure in Osama bin Laden’s death, but the moral symmetry of the universe demands that a person who has perpetrated the terrible crimes against humanity that he’s perpetrated deserves to be executed,” Land said. “And I look upon what happened to him not as a killing, not as an assassination, but an execution for crimes he freely admitted to and bragged about.” Mark Nieting, senior pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in Virginia Beach, said that although bin Laden’s death has come up in small group discussions, it’s not something he felt compelled to spend a lot of time on at Sunday services. His congregation, in a city where war planes regularly fly overhead, is filled with active duty and retired military personnel. “Because this is a military community, I think people understand the difference between murder as laid out in Scripture and the commandments and killing as it happens in war,” he said. “Do I celebrate that the guy’s dead? No. Do I feel safer? No. I don’t celebrate his death. It’s tragic that anyone dies in war, that anyone has to die in a conflict. But we live in a sinful world.” __ Brock Vergakis can be reached at www.twitter.com/BrockVergakis ___ Associated Press writers Jay Lindsay in Boston, Jeff Karoub in Dearborn, Mich., and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.
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‘Evil Must Be Stopped’: Bin Laden’s Death Is a Tricky Topic for Sunday Sermons
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge has ruled that there should be no further implementation of a law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights for public workers. Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi said Tuesday that her earlier restraining order saying the law shouldn’t be enacted had either been ignored or misinterpreted. Sumi stopped short of saying the law was not already in effect. She says she will take more testimony on that issue. The Legislative Reference Bureau posted the law on a legislative website Friday, leading Gov. Scott Walker’s administration to declare the law was in effect. Sumi revised her original March temporary restraining order blocking the secretary of state from publishing the law, which is typically the last step before it becomes effective. A Wisconsin judge weighed arguments Tuesday about whether an order she issued intended to temporarily block the state’s divisive new collective bargaining law was still in place, or whether Republican leaders had again outmaneuvered their opponents by using a legal loophole to achieve their goals. During a hearing into one of several lawsuits challenging the legitimacy of Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s law, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi listened to attorneys for the state argue that it took effect on Saturday because a state office unexpectedly published it online Friday despite Sumi’s order barring the secretary of state from publishing it in the state’s official newspaper – typically the last step before a law takes effect. Democratic Secretary of State Doug La Follette, Dane County Democratic District Attorney Ismael Ozanne – the plaintiff in the lawsuit being heard Tuesday – and the head of the office that posted the story contend that it did not become law because La Follette had not had it published. Sumi had blocked off the rest of Tuesday and all day Friday to hear arguments, and was expected to rule afterward. Whether she decides it did or didn’t become law on Saturday, the law’s legitimacy will likely be decided by the state Supreme Court, which has not indicated whether it would take up an appeals court’s request to hear the case. If Sumi sides with the Republican attorney general’s office, it would mark the second time the Republican lawmakers used a loophole to advance the law, which would strip most public workers of collective bargaining rights and which inspired large pro-union protests in and around the state Capitol. After weeks of stalemate, Republican senators passed the law after finding a way to vote on it without their Democratic colleagues, who had fled the state to deny a quorum. Walker, whose refusal to bend on the collective bargaining issue earned him accolades among many conservatives and condemnation from Democrats and labor unions, was moving forward as if the law took effect. In addition to the collective bargaining issue, the law would require all public workers except police and firefighters to pay more for their health and pension plans, in what would amount to an 8 percent pay cut, on average. The governor’s top aide, Mike Huebsch, said Monday that the administration was preparing a computer program that would account for the new deductions and halt deductions of union dues from state workers’ paychecks, starting April 21. He said the Department of Administration would stop that work if a court determined the law didn’t take effect Saturday. In a court filing Monday night, Ozanne asked Sumi to declare the statute had not become law by being posted online. He wrote that the secretary of state and the reference bureau must work in tandem to publish laws, and that one can’t act alone. “Mere electronic posting, absent the other steps, particularly the involvement of the secretary of state … is itself meaningless and has no legal effect,” wrote Ozanne, whose lawsuit contends that the Senate violated Wisconsin’s open meetings statute because it didn’t give the public enough prior notice before voting on the reconfigured law. The attorney general’s office had asked an appeals court to overturn Sumi’s restraining order, but asked that court on Monday to withdraw the appeal and asked Sumi to cancel Tuesday’s hearing because it believes the law took effect, making it a moot point. The appeals court denied the state’s request Tuesday, saying it had already asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take the case, and is waiting to hear back. Steve Miller, the head of the Legislative Reference Bureau, which posted the law online, testified Tuesday that as far as he knew, his office had never published a law without first getting a specific date from the secretary of state in his 12 years there. He said he doesn’t think his office’s posting of the statute made it law, saying that only happens once the secretary of state publishes a public notice in the state’s official newspaper. But he said he believes his office is legally required to publish laws within 10 days, even without a hard date, and that he doesn’t believe the restraining order extended to his agency. “I still think the duty (to publish within 10 days) is independent,” Miller said. Given the difference of opinions, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards told districts that are still negotiating with teachers not to take any official action until the courts resolve the dispute. Walker has proposed more than $1 billion in cuts to schools, counties and local governments in his budget that would take effect in July. He has argued that the union concessions are needed to help make up for his proposed aid cuts. Democrats and the unions contend that Walker’s attack on collective bargaining was politically motivated attempt to severely weaken the unions, which tend to vote Democrat.
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Breaking: Judge Blocks Wisconsin Collective Bargaining Law…Again
